


Falling

by Santhe



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santhe/pseuds/Santhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave is tired of getting knocked over by Bro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> First off- this is my first posted fanfic, so my apologies of it is horrible, but you should read it anyway, because feedback makes me happy.  
> Second- I'm sorry to those of you who ship Stridercest, but for me this is a completely platonic ship.  
> Finally- This was inspired by a picture I saw awhile ago of a Strider strife, but I honestly can't remember where/when I saw it, so if you are the illustrator of a picture that sounds pretty similar to the story and you want credit, please let me know!

Falling is something you will never get used to.  
You land on the cheap linoleum with a thud and glare up at the dark counter. It’s in vain though. Your bro is long gone, and you won’t see him again unless he wants to be seen.  
You grit your teeth. You know he’s your brother and all, but enough is enough! You feel like every time that you’re anywhere but on the ground, BAM! There’s a hit to your side and you crash to the floor. Never even get a chance to retaliate. And he knows, he knows you hate it.  
It’s time for a strife.  
You stand, leaning on the edge of the counter, and wipe your hand off on your dark pants. No slippery palms while dueling; you’ll need all the advantages you can get. And who knows? Today might be the day when you finally win.  
Ha.  
Your sword feels comfortable in your hand. Solid steel blade, sturdy black handle. It could beat any- yeah, nope, it’s just another shitty sword. Ah well. You look around, dark shades casting a shadow over the kitchen, searching for the telltale flicker to indicate Bro. If your sword is out, he’ll know. He’ll know you want to strife. And he never refuses that.  
There, by the door, a flash of black. You walk forward, cautious, wary of a sneak attack, and peek one eye through the frame.  
A tap on your head. You whip around in time to see the small candy colored sneaker of Cal zip after him up the steps. You sigh and follow. It’d be nice to just duel inside for once, where at least there’s air conditioning, but you haven’t really earned the right to pick the dueling grounds just yet.  
You step swiftly up the dusty stairwell, old moldy scents assaulting your nose, eyeing every shadow with displeasure, especially after you see one of those stupid smuppits lurking in one, ogling at you like it knows you’re about to get served. You take a moment to knock it down the steps with the tip of your blade, then continue on, getting hotter each step up.  
When you push open the door at the top, a heat wave slams into your face like something palpable. You pause to survey the concrete plane, free hand against the doorframe, other holding tightly to your weapon.  
You sense him the moment before the attack- a flash of white and black, a shift in the air, and you raise your blade to catch his an inch from your nose. For a second, you are face to face, only a foot apart, close enough to see him eyeing you under his angular shades. You are reminded, if only briefly, of when you two didn’t always fight. But the thought is unsuccessful in accomplishing pretty much anything as you are currently straining to stop him from slicing your head off.  
Your arms are shaking with exertion when he leaps backwards, Lil’ Cal swinging like a wild monkey around his neck, no sign of tiring at all. You know he didn’t leave because you won. He left on his own will, and that makes you mad.  
You lunge to follow him, raising your sword to strike, but he’s too fast. The katana catches the side of your shoe and you trip, landing hard on your side. When you scramble to your feet, he’s just standing there. Watching you. Not even bothering to attack you while you’re down, because he doesn’t need to. You growl under your breath. Loosing you can take. Being made fun of? Not cool.  
Pushing yourself up, you go on offensive again, leaping from the crouch towards him to exchange a rapid series of blows, which ends fairly similarly to the last attempt when the dull edge of his blade slaps you in the back of the knees and you tumble hard onto your back. You start to roll, but this time he isn’t ignoring you. His full weight hits you heavily on the chest, and your sword clatters out of your hand, useless. He stares down at you, expressionless, as you pant.  
“You’ll have to do better than that.”  
As fast as it appeared, his weight is gone. The gloved hand snatches the back of your shirt and jerks you roughly to your feet. You catch the sword he tosses back to you by instinct. You’ve done it enough times to know how.  
You eye the ground for a long moment. The concrete is starting to turn red from the bloody sunset. You know that’s the only thing that will turn it crimson. As aggressive as Bro can be, he’s always careful not to draw too much blood. Just a scratch, now and then. You wonder sometimes, if he isn’t trying to hurt you, then what is he doing? Is this just his way of enjoying himself?  
You lift your gaze when he moves and block just in time, then turn away and lash at his side. He parries it with ease, and when you lunge again he jumps clean over your head. You spin to see him perching on the spindly black antenna that shoots up from the roof to the sky.  
You storm after him. You’ve had enough of this duel, but he’s just going to chase you if you try to leave now, so you might as well follow.  
You leap onto the first bar easily enough, telling yourself it’ll be just like a latter. No problem, you can deal with latters.  
Well yes, slight problem. You’ve only really got one hand to climb with, because it’s tricky to hold on to the sword handle and one of the thick, oily black bars with the same fingers. But you can see your bro when you look up, climbing faster than a spider, even pausing every few rungs to glance down at you with a slight smirk playing on his face. He’s traveling that much quicker. If he can do it, so can you.  
You think.  
It is not an easy climb, and you quickly tire of it. Where does he think he’s going, anyway? It isn’t as if there’s a platform on the top for you two to fight on.  
Regardless, you won’t give him the satisfaction of giving up. You came this far, and you don’t intend to stop now, because this is starting to feel more and more like an endurance game as sweat trickles into your eyes and you’re whole body crawls with the searing heat of the setting sun. But you won’t give up.  
You’re around 30 feet up and actually starting to gain ground when your palm slips. It was your free hand, no grip on the cold metal with its coating of sweat. Gravity unforgivingly pulls back your shoulders, bringing your hands away from any chance they had to regain a hold. Your feet scrabble against the poles, trying uselessly to hook around one.  
There is a single second of clarity when you are nearly horizontal to the ground and you know your bro has seen you, because for the briefest of moments, a tiny ‘oh’ of surprise shapes his normally expressionless mouth as his foot shoves off the rung. Then you’re falling in earnest.  
Any other fear is completely wiped from your mind, shoved away by the imminent danger of the ground, of hitting bottom, of dying, because you are too high up, too high up to ever, ever land safely. Aside from the concern of height, you of course managed to orient yourself so you are falling head first. For some reason you are still holding your sword, and you can’t seem to release it. Oh well. You try to turn, to grab the bars instead, to do something, but you are hopeless, flightless as a stupid rock, and you are going to die for it.  
That conviction is why you are surprised when a hand catches your ankle. There’s a half second of shock, and then the halt catches up with the top of your leg and you cry out, because your whole limb feels like it’s being torn apart at the joints. When your body has been flattened by gravities pull, there’s a particularly painful jerk as your knee twists and your shoulders smack against the metal, a living pendulum, lurching your shades off of your face and your blade out of your hand.  
You dangle for a minute, eyes closed, knee throbbing, breathe catching in your throat, and then Bro moves, reeling you up to him like a fish, and you yell unintentionally when the pressure is put on your knee, but you don’t fight him. For once, you don’t fight him.  
Once the two of you are on the same level, he shoves his sword away, puts one sturdy arm around you, and begins to carefully climb back down to the ground. You grip the back of his shirt, head hanging over his shoulder, just wanting to be off the poles again. It isn’t far, probably only ten feet. Another couple of seconds and you would have been dead.  
He lowers you onto the cement from the final rung and hops down lightly next to your prone form. You can see him watching you out of the corner of your eye and you try to move yourself, but you can’t. You can’t do it.  
He approaches on silent footsteps and you jerk when he leans down, surprised, but he just scoops you up like a child and carries you the yard or so to the air conditioning unit, propping you against it. It isn’t far, but the brief seconds against his arms are enough to tell you that you’re shaking like a leaf. You also notice that Cal is gone. Must have fallen on the way down, just like everything else.  
Bro strides away again and you think he’s left for good, but he returns a second later, holding your sword in one hand and glasses in the other. He drops them with a quiet clatter on one side of you and slides himself down on the other side. You aren’t sure anymore if you are happy or sad about that. Part of you is glad he’s there, because he caught you, because he’s your guardian, he will protect you. But a bigger part is welling up with an emotion you can’t stand: shame.  
Not only did you make a fool of yourself while dueling, that was usual, you nearly got yourself killed. Bro had to save your life because you couldn’t even climb the stupid antenna!  
You look away from him, face burning, and are pleased to see that at least your shades aren’t broken. You reach for them. You’re so used to wearing them, everything seems too bright now when they’re off. But your hand has other ideas. You pick them up alright, but your fingers are quaking to such an extent that you drop them while trying to push them on your face. They tumble back to their original position. You feel a tear in your eye.  
You lift your hand quickly and swipe it away. Bad enough that your Bro just saw that lovely show of horrible clumsiness. The last thing you need is for him to see you cry.  
You try to pull your knees up, to hide your face, to recover in the shadow, but only your right one obliges. You let the left fall back with a gasp of pain. Something got hurt when you were caught. So you cross your arms over your right knee and bury your emotions in those instead.  
You can hear the shuffle of cloth, letting you know that your bro is moving, but you don’t know what he’s doing. You sincerely hope that he isn’t attacking you again. You’re not in any state to fight. Not now.  
But no. Bro’s crouching next to the knee of your splayed out leg. The katana lies forgotten on the cement, watched over by Cal, as Bro carefully cuffs the pant leg up to the base of your thigh. He observes it for a moment. Even you, with your absolutely zero amount of medical experience, can see that something’s wrong. The bottom is twisted the wrong way, and the knee is just plain the wrong shape.  
When his fingers probe the wound, you have to fight to keep still as hot pain flashes through the leg. It’s not a feeling you’re used to. You’ve gotten scratched before of course, but this is a different kind of pain, on the inside of your skin, and you do not like it. But you sit as still as you can, digging your nails into your good knee, clenching your jaw hard as Bro’s callused, gloved hands search for the problem.  
Despite the fact that you’re trying hard to make this easy for him, you can’t be helping much, because even though it’s hot as hell out here, you are shivering as if it’s January in Alaska.  
He finally moves from his crouch and slouches back down next to you again. Another unbidden tear has slid onto your cheek, and with the quaking tremors of your fingers, you’re more likely to poke your eye out than to catch the drop if you tried to remove it. You wish you had your glasses back. No one needs to see your eyes, and especially not your tears, rare as they may be. And especially not your bro. Who is currently dropping an arm over your shoulder.  
“Sorry, little man.”  
You turn and look up at him. He’s not watching you. His eyes are on the sunset, still spilling its molten blood over the city. It’s not like him to apologize. Not at all.  
“What?”  
He glances down at you. The sun is at an angle where the light strikes his eyes from the side, allowing you to see one clearly, even through the glasses. He’s watching you, with an odd look on his face. It’s odd anyway, seeing an eye. You don’t see them very much. And you guess he doesn’t see yours too much either. Is that why he’s looking like that?  
No, that’s not right. He looks… a little sad maybe. But there’s something else too, something surprising. Guilt? But why would he feel guilty? You’re the one that fell.  
He lifts his arm again and ruffles your hair, then hops to his feet. “Let’s go get that knee fixed up.” He reaches down and scoops you up in his arms. You just manage to catch your shades on your shivering fingers before you’re swept into the air, and you hook them onto your shirt as he carries you out of the sun’s eye, holding you until the shaking finally stops.


End file.
